Okay, so now that I've covered what happened at the end of the first book, I can finally get onto the more exciting stuff. I don't know how far I'm planning on taking this, but I do really want to address some things, especially in regards to dealing with depression and what not. So stick with me on this.
Beyond Repair
By: Her Voice
The weeks following the Games are painful.
Parading around the District, trying to act like we are in love without the feelings there is more than hard. It's a fine balancing act in my mind, trying to show my true feelings while not being bitter about knowing that it is a lie. Trying to act like she loved me, too. People follow us, watching everything that we do. We are expected to be deliriously happy.
Even though people are glaring. Even though most of those who are Seam born don't believe it for a second.
When the cameras are around, I decided that pretending isn't so bad.
It's something that I used to do often as a child. I would be standing at the counters of the bakery, rolling out dough and I would pretend that my mother didn't hate me. I would hear her coming in and imagine that she was rushing in to see me, sweeping me up in a hug. I would see her pressing loving kisses onto my father's cheeks. I would hear her directing me lovingly in a recipe, playfully tossing flour in my face while we laughed. I created so many happy images in my mind, it felt easy to do so with Katniss.
Each time she leaned in to kiss me, I had to remind myself that it wasn't real. Every time she searched for me in the crowd, I had to rush to her side instead of running in the opposite direction. Every smile that seemed to be just for me was a lie for the crowd. When people weren't watching, we almost acted like we didn't know each other.
Creating the relationship I want to have with her makes me ache, more so because she wants nothing to do with it.
We parted ways each night, angry. I can barely tell why she is mad. But I am so frustrated with everything. My leg aches at the end of each event and I can't rip it off soon enough. When I am home alone, I didn't even bother to wear it. I hobble around on crutches; no one there to see me in my weakness. Either way, I am reminded of what I lost.
Leaps and bounds had been made in our relationship during the Games, and now we have fallen at least a dozen steps back.
I can't look at her without being mad. Without hating myself.
And every time my eyes meet hers, it feels like it was the same look she'd give to an animal stuck in a trap.
I wish she'd just put me out of my misery.
Katniss's mother is a saving grace, even if she doesn't know it. A simple comment about Katniss being too young gives everyone a reason as to why we aren't together. With the cameras around, it is hard to stay away. But as soon as they left, no one questions why we aren't together. Everyone just assumes Mrs. Everdeen put her foot down.
A mixed blessing, really.
It is all I can do to keep busy.
Every morning, I'm wretched from sleep by nightmares, usually in the early morning hours. They are vivid, enhanced by the fact that I wake up alone. My only reassurance in their falsehood is that Katniss is very vocal with her nightmares. Her screams usually keep me grounded. From across the street, there is very little about her dreams that I don't know.
Unable to fall back asleep, I end up in the kitchen, cooking something or other, making due on the crutches. But there is only so much baking you can do before you meet your wits end. My mother refuses to sell what I bake in the store, and it's not like I can sell it myself. That is against the rules of the Victors. I can't profit in any way, not even with Capitol approval. Even if my family wished to sell the bread as their own, my mother refuses. She won't even let me back into the house.
The monotony is usually broken up by crippling depression.
Most days, I'm just fine. I might be alone, but I can function. For two or three days, I feel normal, if not a little numb.
But then, like getting slapped in the face, it hits me. I can hardly pull myself out of bed. I don't even bother with putting my leg on. And the crying always catches me off guard. I can never stop it, and I never know what is going to set it off. It's like I can go those few days completely numb, but the medication wears off and it hits me all at once. For reasons I don't understand. It never has anything to do with the Games. One time, it's because I'm short a half cup of flour. The next, it's because it's raining.
Nothing can bring me out on days like this. There is no acting normal. There is no baking.
I came home, thinking I would have Katniss in the end. And now, I'm wishing I had died in the arena.
I hate the way I feel, because it's so unlike me. Crying for a hour with no hope of stopping has never happened to me. My father thinks it's because of the Games, but I have my reason to doubt.
Depression, the doctors tell me, is a combination of chemical imbalances and psychological factors. And the Capitol prides itself on its simple pill that can fix the first part of it. I've been taking it since before being released from the hospital. For the most part, it helps. But on those days where I can't even stand, I blame the medication.
I hate the numbing separation my mind has created. As if this is a better alternative to feelings.
My whole life has been full of things that should have sent me into a downward spiral. My mother beat me on a regular basis, and yet I was still able to go to school with a smile on my face. I can eat three day-old bread and I'm still willing to share it with others. If nothing else, I can see the best of any situation. I can handle the cards I've been dealt.
And yet this one awful event happens and I'm debilitated, shattered into pieces of a person I don't even know anymore.
The Games change you.
I can't live like this. I refuse to be the broken Victor. I will not be defined completely by the Games, in ways I have no control over.
My doctors are concerned about stopping the medication without first decreasing my daily dose. But I don't care what they say. I know that someone else might benefit from them, but after the horrible reaction I have to them, I flush them down my toilet. I don't want to be responsible for someone else wishing they were dead, too.
It takes a few days before I feel any better.
When I wake up, a week after stopping the pills, I finally feel like myself. It's surprising, really, how different I feel. There is no numb cloud that hangs over me. My nightmares aren't so vivid, and I feel like i'm in control of the moments in which I wake up. I can talk myself into going back to bed, sleeping better than I have since the arena.
I feel like me. And I don't want to be a victim anymore.
I've been home for 2 months, and I feel like I just woke up off the train. I remember everything that happened, but it was as if I was watching from outside. My actions weren't my own, my brain under the control of the medication. The house doesn't look like I've been living in it— It looks like I imagine Haymitch's does. I'm glad that no one has come over to visit.
There is trash everywhere, scattered haphazardly with small clear spots to allow for my crutches to safely travel through the house. The kitchen is embarrassing, flour and pans in piles all over the surfaces. I am almost tempted to walk back outside to make sure I am in my house and not my mentor's. But I refrain, knowing that after how I've felt all week, I'm not really surprised that this is what happened. A lack of any sort of ambition, sweetened by the fog of medication, took away any chance of me making this place a home.
It takes me most of the day to clean the place up. And my leg is painful from lack of use. I can only spend a few hours on it before I'm rubbing ointment on it and taking a break. I have absolutely nothing in the kitchen in the way of edible food. I don't think that I can stand the amount of walking to fill my cupboards.
I have to decide what's more important for me— wearing my leg but suffering or letting people see what the new me entails.
I stare at the prosthetic for a while. If I had been doing the exercises that I'd been sent home with, it probably wouldn't have been so painful to wear. If I hadn't been so quick to take if off, and so against wearing it, I would have built up the endurance.
But I hadn't.
I'd tossed it aside as soon as I could. I rebelled against it, against the very idea of it. I refused to even acknowledge the loss for what it was.
It wasn't anything like learning that Katniss had been playing it up to the audience. Emotions are one thing, especially since they were something I'd had for most of my life. But the loss of something physical like a limb has to be dealt with in a different way.
This is the rest of my life. I will never magically grow back a limb. This is my home, and even though coming back from the Games was a mostly unpopular opinion, I have to deal with that. I need to be able to be at home.
And it's going to start with showing people who I really am now.
I dress in the most simple pair of pants I can find in my closet, pinning the left leg as much I can. My sweater is light, the early fall air still warm. It would take me twice as long to hobble though town, and most of the stuff would have to be delivered. But I don't have a choice— I have to eat.
I'm about to leave the house when someone knocks, one quick beat, followed by three longer ones. I'm a little nervous because I know who it is.
Amaranth, Ren to his family, is my middle brother. And he and I were close before I left for the Games. He's a year and a half years older than me, no longer eligible for the Games three days before the Reaping. He's 6 inches taller than me, his hair the same rich coffee color as my mother. But where she lives in hate, my brother tends to survive on sarcasm and sugar alone.
He's leaning against the door, grinning like he would normally. Like nothing had changed between us. He punches my shoulder and I slap his thigh with the bottom of my crutch.
Bless him, he doesn't say anything about my leg.
"If I ever get kicked out, I'm coming over here." He said, stepping into the room to look around. He eyes the bags of trash set by the door, "Do I want to know?"
"Probably not." I say with a smile. "Want to help me spend my winnings?"
He laughed, "Want to ask me a real question?"
I fall back into my usual banter. "I've lost weight, can you tell?"
"Only in the legs."
I laugh, unable to deny how normal this feels. It's been hard to figure out my place. Now that I'm off the medication and feeling more like myself, it's a little easier. Having Ren on my side, family reaching out to me; it's comforting. And I didn't think I needed it until I saw him. I resist giving him a hug, pushing him out of the door, allowing it to click behind me.
People stare.
The village is empty, so they don't stare really whispering until we make our way into the square. Since I haven't really been out much, it's the first time I've encountered it. I've never been a gossip, never been one to stare at people because I've always thought it to be rude. Ren glares at those who openly gawk, challenges anyone to say something to his face. But I feel like this is normal, too. People would stare when my mother would go off the handle and leave a bruise. I almost laughed because I'm not mad. At least, not about this. How could I be mad about being treated the same as before?
I know they are talking about my leg. I know they are whispering about the obvious lack of my 'lover'. But I'm okay with that.
Our shopping doesn't exactly go as fast as I would like it to. But we spend money throughout the square. I can afford the good flour, fine sugar and even chocolate chips and almond bark. I purchase meats from the butcher and eggs from one of the small farms nearby. I splurge on coffee and heavy creams. I can afford cheeses and expensive oils that we've never been able to use in the bakery.
Even though I feel like I've done nothing but bake since I've been home, I'm genuinely looking forward to trying some of things I can now buy. My mother won't sell it, won't allow it to benefit the family, but I have other options.
I know how many people starve in Twelve. I've seen the thin, dirty faces peering in at the sweets through the window. I've noticed the crying families who mourn the loss of a child due to starvation. I watch people dissolve into skin and bones. Even with Parcel Day, they always need more. Who better to benefit from my boredom than those who have nothing to eat?
If nothing else, it will keep me occupied.
Ren thinks of things that I wouldn't have. He stocks me up on things that I've never had to buy before— food colorings and piping tips and pastry brushes. He orders things that the family has always dreamed of but never been able to afford, like state of the art knives and fancy mixers. He makes sure that I've got every pan and bowl and measuring cup that I might not have at home. And he takes the liberty of ordering a few things for himself. I'm happy to be able to share it with my family.
Even though I fought to keep Katniss alive, I won hoping to be able to help my family.
Having that turned down added to my depression. Doing this with is Ren is helping the healing process.
It's not much, but it's something.